Crash Override review: Defining what the Internet can learn from the G-word

Zoe Quinn recaps years of Internet harassment with context and surprises for all.

"I find myself having to frequently explain completely incomprehensible nonsense," game maker Zoe Quinn writes in her new book Crash Override. "And it's hard to bond with someone when they can't understand you."

This sentence sums up Quinn's memoir-length attempt to grapple with her Internet experience, which has become too common: as Gamergate's "patient zero" as she puts it, she was a highly visible target in an Internet harassment, abuse, and threat campaign. To give us a sense of what that was like, she writes about her early life growing up poor, offers a primer on the hate-filled corners of the Internet, guides us through how the judicial and police systems view the online world, and tries to deliver a comprehensive look at the ways marginalized people face abuse on online platforms. That's a pretty tall order for 238 pages.

Quinn hasn't necessarily written a guide to online hate that can be handed to Internet-culture outsiders, and she sometimes struggles to connect larger social issues to her complicated personal history. But she doesn't fumble this effort, either. Crash Override combines a brisk pace, candid stories, and embedded insight. Quinn's first book has its uneven moments, but it's important stuff for anybody interested in how online discourse has shifted over the past two decades.

Defining the G-word

The book comes with a long subtitle: "How Gamergate (nearly) destroyed my life, and how we can win the fight against online hate." Though there are many definitions of Gamergate at this point, Quinn views it as one arm of a larger social and political movement.

Further Reading

"Gamergate wasn't really about video games at all so much as it was a flash point for radicalized online hatred that had a long list of targets before, and after, my name was added to it," she writes. "The movement helped solidify the growing connections between online white supremacist movements, misogynist nerds, conspiracy theorists, and dispassionate hoaxers who derive a sense of power from disseminating disinformation." She goes on to argue that the people who identified with this movement "became a real force behind giving Donald Trump the keys to the White House."

Crash Override's biggest success is in connecting the dots to clarify Gamergate's mission. In some ways, Quinn is simply taking ownership of a word that changed her life forever. But more importantly, she's unmasking the often-hidden methods used by many online hate groups. She has done her research and uses ample references to forum posts, IRC channel logs, and other documented Internet posts to identify the tactics used by anonymous Internet posters to both directly intimidate Quinn and publicly obfuscate any appearance of a unified attack.

One such plan revolved around an e-mail campaign aimed at anybody who might employ either Quinn or her known friends and allies—all while simultaneously raising money for an apparent "anti-harassment" charity. "The object is to cause infighting and doubt within SJW [social justice warrior] ranks," an anonymous person wrote in an intercepted chat log that Quinn republishes in the book.

Further Reading

Quinn describes the movement's earliest moments: anonymous e-mails were sent to anybody she was affiliated with, full of nude photos from Quinn's pseudonymous modeling days. The people e-mailing threatened that if her friends didn't distance themselves from Quinn, they'd be targeted next. She describes a phone call with her father in which he confirmed receiving a litany of strange prank calls revolving around "Five Guys Burgers and Lies"—a reference to a sexually charged slogan employed by Quinn's scorned ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni in a notorious 2014 manifesto. (Quinn points to this phrase's malicious intent and says that the manifesto "weaved in-jokes and memes the way corporate brands do when they're trying to court a young, tech-savvy demographic.")

This recounting of anonymous vitriol, along with the retelling of Quinn's early life on the Internet, mostly succeeds in clarifying jargon for anyone new to terms like "SWATing," "dogpiling," and "brigading." The book still makes readers swim through a thick soup of nerd-anese, however, and that may prove difficult for anyone unfamiliar with sites like Something Awful and 4chan, let alone those who are clueless about Reddit.

First, there's her lengthy takedown of a group she calls "Internet Inquisitors." These are writers and YouTube channel hosts who "validate feelings and provide guidance" in order to "confirm a mob's hatred, paranoia, and insecurities and direct it toward the nearest combustible witch on their radar." (She opts not to name any of them, but it's easy to guess who she's referring to in certain examples, particularly former Breitbart columnist Milo Yiannopoulos.) Quinn became intimately acquainted with this trend of Internet provocateur after seeing her face and stories front and center on certain YouTube channels. Then she saw some of those video creators appear in Gamergate-affiliated IRC channels to "workshop" their next Quinn-related videos to their target, angry audience.

Quinn discovered her face plastered on Internet-outrage videos with titles like "Raped by Zoe Quinn: Why We Need Meninism."

Quinn counted how much time one YouTube channel dedicated to savaging game-culture critic Anita Sarkeesian over a period of nearly three years. The total: more than 3,500 minutes, or 58 hours.

As critical as Quinn is of these creators, she's more disturbed by a "poisonous" trend on content sites. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook allow hate to spread by combining content-neutral algorithms (which turn a blind eye to whether content violates a site's terms of service) with an economy of attention (which grants value to anything that garners quick clicks). These algorithms are easily gamed, she says, and the result is social media that favors tons of views, no questions asked, over asking pointed questions about what exactly drives those clicks.

Crash Override takes that seemingly obvious social-network issue and humanizes it in striking fashion. She tells us how it felt to find her face plastered on Internet-outrage videos—auto-suggested to her, of course—with titles like "Raped by Zoe Quinn: Why We Need Meninism." For months, her top auto-complete result on Google was "Zoe Quinn Five Guys." Her friends complain that Quinn's private Facebook posts are being matched with "suggested posts" accusing her of trying to infect people with HIV. "Content-neutral algorithms can turn the Internet into a popularity contest in which the people who want to see you fail are the only ones motivated to vote," she writes.

330 Reader Comments

Edit for clarification: This is a quote from a 90s b-movie called Hackers. The main character's handle was "Crash Override," and he'd taunt other hackers by saying this. I wasn't attacking anyone, it was just an obscure movie reference. I didn't think the movie was THAT old.

I'm going to assume that people misunderstood the context, and not because it was such a terrible movie.

So this is still a thing apparently? I get the whole Stormfront, anti-gamergate thing, etc. I do, but apparently the only thing anyone, such as Zoe, has done in regards to it is work to make money off of it. Why don't we come up with a solution that actually works, instead of constantly participating in flame wars, or using it for self-enrichment of the monetary sense?

I mean the one thing I haven't heard come out of any of these things (or even this book) is the answer to, or even the question of 'Where do we go from here?'. I could care less what she went through, it was a tragedy yes, but it happened so what do we do now and what controls do we put in place to prevent it from happening to someone else? That is what everyone should be looking it.

So this is still a thing apparently? I get the whole Stormfront, anti-gamergate thing, etc. I do, but apparently the only thing anyone, such as Zoe, has done in regards to it is work to make money off of it. Why don't we come up with a solution that actually works, instead of constantly participating in flame wars, or using it for self-enrichment of the monetary sense?

I mean the one thing I haven't heard come out of any of these things (or even this book) is the answer to, or even the question of 'Where do we go from here?'. I could care less what she went through, it was a tragedy yes, but it happened so what do we do now and what controls do we put in place to prevent it from happening to someone else? That is what everyone should be looking it.

From the article, it does sound like it's working on it by establishing contacts with various online platforms to help report and deal with abuse.

This is such a problem precisely because there is not single "next step" to solve the problem. It's tricky and it won't be solved quickly. Maybe at all. But I do think that efforts are being made in various corners of the internet.

So this is still a thing apparently? I get the whole Stormfront, anti-gamergate thing, etc. I do, but apparently the only thing anyone, such as Zoe, has done in regards to it is work to make money off of it. Why don't we come up with a solution that actually works, instead of constantly participating in flame wars, or using it for self-enrichment of the monetary sense?

I mean the one thing I haven't heard come out of any of these things (or even this book) is the answer to, or even the question of 'Where do we go from here?'. I could care less what she went through, it was a tragedy yes, but it happened so what do we do now and what controls do we put in place to prevent it from happening to someone else? That is what everyone should be looking it.

From the article, it does sound like it's working on it by establishing contacts with various online platforms to help report and deal with abuse.

This is such a problem precisely because there is not single "next step" to solve the problem. It's tricky and it won't be solved quickly. Maybe at all. But I do think that efforts are being made in various corners of the internet.

Except there is zero transparency on anything being done about it. I mean PewDiePie is still a thing, people getting doxxed is still a thing, and people being slammed, ridiculed, bullied, death threats, etc. are still a thing. Yet again no one is actually PUBLICALLY talking about it and saying 'here is what we are doing to stop it'. Congress sure has heck ain't doing a thing about it, Luckey, PDP, and the rest are still rich as hell off of it. And the only thing mentioned here is 'unnamed social site'. There is zero way to verify that, and if the site is MySpace that's achieving a hell of a lot less than if it is Facebook. I mean nothing she claims, from what I can tell here in this once over, is verifiable. Which tells me that no nothing is being actually done about it, just people saying they are doing something about it to 'look good' or to keep the money coming in.

Sorry been in the work environment FAR too long that anytime someone claims something and that claim helps them keep raking in money regardless of truth, it makes me question it. And given that she names no names, and the ones she does specifically disagrees with her claims (such as STEAM) makes me extra suspicious.

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If you don't care what she went through, why do you want to prevent it from happening to someone else? Wouldn't you just not care about that person as well?

No it's a you don't cry over spilled milk, what is done is done, the important thing is to implement changes to prevent it from occuring again. Just like when someone at work had an accident that ended up duplicating transactions from multiple customer's deposits from 2 weeks before while at the same time dropping the transactions from the day that was supposed to be loaded. I didn't yell at and fire them, we fixed the issue (which took over a week of multiple department's time), did an RCA and implemented changes so it wouldn't happen again. What happened yesterday is only important in order to learn to prevent it from happening again tomorrow.

You need to take these article down, because GG is a banned topic on the ArsOpenForum.

Exactly...is this a troll thread to bring out the ban hammer?

Or are we taking the usual leftist stance of anything the other side says is not welcome here but stuff that we agree with is?

Generally, Ars is pretty good with the openess of speech, but TBH, this is a touchy subject for Ars that doesnt allow open discussion of the matter.

Maybe people just don't like the things you say?

Uh...hmm... not that I disagree with you, but what does that have to do with the comment?

It's pretty common knowledge of anyone that was here during the whole shit slinging fest that the Moderators themselves stopped discussion of the subject on this site. Hence..."the Gate which shall not be named" ....

“As many have observed,” the company said in a statement, “when viewed in its entirety the Nintendo Treehouse: Live segment for Paper Mario: Color Splash from E3 includes two jokes separated by commentary and gameplay that have no relation to each other. One joke has to do with Watergate, while the other is a nod to the Fungi Fun Guys from Mario Party 8. It was brought to our attention today that these two jokes have been spliced together and misconstrued as a crude reference to an online hate campaign.”

It is reasonable when the bits are spliced together to think they are related to the massive harassment campaign against Quinn. One can imagine that is you have been the target of a massive campaign to cause you distress that these sorts of references even when separated by commentary and gameplay can yield the thought that it is targeted at you. Placing yourself in someone else's shoes helps in this process of understanding how someone could feel something even if it may not be the intention of the content creator.

Even if you don't agree with Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian's views, I find it so disappointing people feel so insecure in their own beliefs to go to these lengths in order to drag them through the mud and not only try to discredit them, but also personally harass them.

If you have the courage of your convictions, give a thoughtful argument of why they're wrong. Harassment, death threats, and abusive behavior is a tell on how intellectually weak you are.

Internet harassment is a real issue, but it's a shame that the standard bearers are such terrible people more concerned about creating drama and publicity than fixing problems.

This exact comment is where the "Ars Technica value" of this book lights up. Her chapters about taking action and formally communicating with online platform holders (in what she calls "escalation channels"), and the roadblocks faced while doing so, are the most interesting ones. This is already a very long book review, so I didn't repeat verbatim what processes she established to understand and report content based on TOS agreements, all outside the public eye. I would argue that's the opposite of creating "drama and publicity." Your opinion may vary, but I really wanted to clarify that point. Carry on.

You need to take these article down, because GG is a banned topic on the ArsOpenForum.

Exactly...is this a troll thread to bring out the ban hammer?

Or are we taking the usual leftist stance of anything the other side says is not welcome here but stuff that we agree with is?

Generally, Ars is pretty good with the openess of speech, but TBH, this is a touchy subject for Ars that doesnt allow open discussion of the matter.

Maybe people just don't like the things you say?

I didn't particularly care what he said about the ban hammer, but I did report him as a troll for making it political. This isn't a leftist rightist thing. This is a social issue whereby people feel empowered to be asshats, and what we need to do to stomp out the plethora of asshats that empowerment has created.

Some people genuinely believed in the "gooder" aspect of GG. Whether or not that's a cross to die on is another argument. I thought GG was dumb regardless. That said, some of the SWJ people opposite GG weren't great people either and themselves harassed and doxed people pretty hard. And the coverage of the whole thing was pretty one-sided. I can see why people would be upset by some of the media folks.

You need to take these article down, because GG is a banned topic on the ArsOpenForum.

Exactly...is this a troll thread to bring out the ban hammer?

Or are we taking the usual leftist stance of anything the other side says is not welcome here but stuff that we agree with is?

Generally, Ars is pretty good with the openess of speech, but TBH, this is a touchy subject for Ars that doesnt allow open discussion of the matter.

Maybe people just don't like the things you say?

I didn't particularly care what he said about the ban hammer, but I did report him as a troll for making it political. This isn't a leftist rightist thing. This is a social issue whereby people feel empowered to be asshats, and what we need to do to stomp out the plethora of asshats that empowerment has created.

Seriously?

Disagree with @ziegler, fine.

Debate, make your point - forcefully, if you like.

But if that's your standard for deciding that another long-time poster is a troll, I pity you.

It is reasonable when the bits are spliced together to think they are related to the massive harassment campaign against Quinn. One can imagine that is you have been the target of a massive campaign to cause you distress that these sorts of references even when separated by commentary and gameplay can yield the thought that it is targeted at you. Placing yourself in someone else's shoes helps in this process of understanding how someone could feel something even if it may not be the intention of the content creator.

Right, because the family-friendly Nintendo is prone to including references to people's sex lives in their games?

Any reasonably rational individual can see that was clearly a Watergate reference.

You need to take these article down, because GG is a banned topic on the ArsOpenForum.

Exactly...is this a troll thread to bring out the ban hammer?

Or are we taking the usual leftist stance of anything the other side says is not welcome here but stuff that we agree with is?

Generally, Ars is pretty good with the openess of speech, but TBH, this is a touchy subject for Ars that doesnt allow open discussion of the matter.

Maybe people just don't like the things you say?

I didn't particularly care what he said about the ban hammer, but I did report him as a troll for making it political. This isn't a leftist rightist thing. This is a social issue whereby people feel empowered to be asshats, and what we need to do to stomp out the plethora of asshats that empowerment has created.

It's the leftist side that usually wants to squash speech they dont like. In my experience at least... I would point to you as evidence of such. You dont like me and my post, you report it as a troll post to try to silence my objectionable speech. Typical leftist behaviour.

I think I have reported one post on this forum in my years here and that was a Panda insurance post that managed to make it onto the forums for more than a couple of minutes.

Internet harassment is a real issue, but it's a shame that the standard bearers are such terrible people more concerned about creating drama and publicity than fixing problems.

"Well behaved women seldom make history" -- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

What I think is a shame is that like so many women before her, she can't stand up for an issue she cares about without people whining about how she's just trying to "create drama" or other such reductive nonsense. Happens everywhere. Men are 'assertive', women are 'bossy'. Men are 'confident', women are 'bitchy'.

It would be nice if instead of objecting to the failure of women to live up to the behavioral standards we want to impose upon them, we could instead discuss the issue on the merits without tut tutting our condescending disapproval of their lack of politeness.

She is not a good standard bearer for anything. Lots of people have said horrible things about her and she in turn have said horrible things about lots of people. She talks about web logs. Well there are weblogs from her group which show they are engage in many of the same acts she accuses other of.

Also she is not in anyway marginalized. She has this book, she has spoke at the U.N. she has access to many journalist and large companies such as Google and Facebook.

Even if you don't agree with Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian's views, I find it so disappointing people feel so insecure in their own beliefs to go to these lengths in order to drag them through the mud and not only try to discredit them, but also personally harass them.

If you have the courage of your convictions, give a thoughtful argument of why they're wrong. Harassment, death threats, and abusive behavior is a tell on how intellectually weak you are.

I'd say the evidence of Sarkeesian being a snake oil salesman is pretty good. That doesn't mean she should be harassed. I shouldn't have to say that, but if one doesn't profess thier purity, people assume they're a nazi these days.

Internet harassment is a real issue, but it's a shame that the standard bearers are such terrible people more concerned about creating drama and publicity than fixing problems.

This exact comment is where the "Ars Technica value" of this book lights up. Her chapters about taking action and formally communicating with online platform holders (in what she calls "escalation channels"), and the roadblocks faced while doing so, are the most interesting ones. This is already a very long book review, so I didn't repeat verbatim what processes she established to understand and report content based on TOS agreements, all outside the public eye. I would argue that's the opposite of creating "drama and publicity." Your opinion may vary, but I really wanted to clarify that point. Carry on.

Except there is no listing of this, and no supporting facts to back it up. Nothing of her claims is verified, and it especially needs to be validated since she profits/benefits from it continuing. I mean let's say, a magical unicorn blowing rainbow farts passes over the world tomorrow and everyone is getting along and no one is sending death threats or doxxing people or anything else anymore. She is essentially out of a job, zero money income. So it behooves her to keep it alive and look like she is doing something about it while actually doing the least amount possible to stop it as once that gravy train stops she has to find a real job.

And note I am not saying that because of who she is, I say that about many people. I really think white supremecy keeps going not because there are actually a lot of racist bastages, but rather because those in charge, for the purposes of enriching themselves and making the most money possible are REALLY good at brainwashing and convincing the ignorant and the hopeless that everyone else is the cause of their problems. I mean look at how much the leaders of those groups make, it's a pretty penny yet all of their members that they are fleecing tend to be lower class and lower wage earners. If working in finance for 20+ years has taught me anything, it's that the majority of the wealthy make their money off of convincing the less knowledgeable that they have what they need and the answers they seek. Even when they have nothing.

Internet harassment is a real issue, but it's a shame that the standard bearers are such terrible people more concerned about creating drama and publicity than fixing problems.

This exact comment is where the "Ars Technica value" of this book lights up. Her chapters about taking action and formally communicating with online platform holders (in what she calls "escalation channels"), and the roadblocks faced while doing so, are the most interesting ones. This is already a very long book review, so I didn't repeat verbatim what processes she established to understand and report content based on TOS agreements, all outside the public eye. I would argue that's the opposite of creating "drama and publicity." Your opinion may vary, but I really wanted to clarify that point. Carry on.

Except there is no listing of this, and no supporting facts to back it up. Nothing of her claims is verified, and it especially needs to be validated since she profits/benefits from it continuing. I mean let's say, a magical unicorn blowing rainbow farts passes over the world tomorrow and everyone is getting along and no one is sending death threats or doxxing people or anything else anymore. She is essentially out of a job, zero money income. So it behooves her to keep it alive and look like she is doing something about it while actually doing the least amount possible to stop it as once that gravy train stops she has to find a real job.

And note I am not saying that because of who she is, I say that about many people. I really think white supremecy keeps going not because there are actually a lot of racist bastages, but rather because those in charge, for the purposes of enriching themselves and making the most money possible are REALLY good at brainwashing and convincing the ignorant and the hopeless that everyone else is the cause of their problems. I mean look at how much the leaders of those groups make, it's a pretty penny yet all of their members that they are fleecing tend to be lower class and lower wage earners. If working in finance for 20+ years has taught me anything, it's that the majority of the wealthy make their money off of convincing the less knowledgeable that they have what they need and the answers they seek. Even when they have nothing.

Gamers are an easy target that can't fight back. The coverage on the MSM was pretty biased and had a narrative it wanted to push.

Internet harassment is a real issue, but it's a shame that the standard bearers are such terrible people more concerned about creating drama and publicity than fixing problems.

"Such terrible people" is the kind of description I'd use for Martin Shkreli and his kin, so I'm curious about what she did that you think she deserves such a cruel description. I admit I've been out of the loop for a very long time, but being harassed and talking about hardly sounds like something deserving of it.